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“Working people around the world are under attack from corporations, politicians and authoritarian regimes,” said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings. “We are committed to organising workers and building union strength to fight for decent work, fair pay and social justice.”



So far 2011 has been a challenging one for workers. Revolutions and uprisings have spread across the Middle East and North Africa with trade unions leading the push for change. There have been historical victories for democracy and freedom in Tunisia and Egypt but in other countries, like Libya and Bahrain, the authoritarian regimes have tried to crush protests with brutal violence.



In the United States, Republicans in state governments across the country have led a political campaign to deprive public workers of collective bargaining rights. This has unleashed massive popular protest that could seriously hurt the party’s chances in the 2012 elections but the final outcome for workers’ futures is unclear.



“These are challenging times for working families around the world and now, more than ever, we need to come together in unions and in the global trade union movement to fight for our rights,” Jennings said.



UNI is focused on its Breaking Through plan to win more rights and better standards for workers around the world. It is working with its member unions to organise workers in the service sectors globally. UNI is also focusing on signing more Global Agreements to ensure that more workers at multinationals have the right to organise without fear of reprisals from company management.



UNI has already signed 39 Global Agreements with multinationals that lay out principles of worker and union rights that the companies agree to follow at all of their locations around the world.



“Signing these agreements has paved the way for organising tens of thousands of workers, very often in countries that have very little in the law books that protect trade union activity,” Jennings said. “For example, with Global Agreements at G4S, Telefonica and Carrefour, we have been able to raise standards for security workers in India, telecom workers in Colombia and retail workers in Turkey.”



Only by increasing union membership will we be able to change the rules of the game in the global labour market and ensure workers voices are heard.